Rapid and inexpensive installation can help to increase the prevalence of fuel cell systems. Installation costs for pour in place custom designed concrete pads, which generally require trenching for plumbing and electrical lines, can become prohibitive. Installation time is also a problem in the case of most sites since concrete pours and trenches generally require one or more building permits and building inspector reviews.
Furthermore, stationary fuel cell systems may be installed in location where the cost of real estate is quite high or the available space is limited (e.g., a loading dock, a narrow alley or space between buildings, etc.). The fuel cell system installation should have a high utilization of available space. When a considerable amount of stand-off space is required for access to the system via doors and the like, installation real estate costs increase significantly.
When the number of fuel cell systems to be installed on a site increases, one problem which generally arises is that stand-off space between these systems is required (to allow for maintenance of one unit or the other unit). The space between systems is lost in terms of its potential to be used by the customer of the fuel cell system.
In the case of some fuel cell system designs, these problems are resolved by increasing the overall capacity of the monolithic system design. However, this creates new challenges as the size and weight of the concrete pad required increases. Therefore, this strategy tends to increase the system installation time. Furthermore, as the minimum size of the system increases, the fault tolerance of the design is reduced.
The fuel cell stacks or columns of the fuel cell systems are usually located in hot boxes (i.e., thermally insulated containers). The hot boxes of existing large stationary fuel cell systems are housed in cabinets, housings or enclosures. The terms cabinet, enclosure, and housing are used interchangeably herein. The cabinets are usually made from metal. The metal is painted with either automotive or industrial powder coat paint, which is susceptible to scratching, denting and corrosion. Most of these cabinets are similar to current industrial HVAC equipment cabinets.